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Mindfulness meditation is increasingly being incorporated into psychotherapeutic interventions. However, whilst much research has addressed the question of whether mindfulness-based interventions work, less has been directed at how they work. The current thesis describes four studies that explored potential mechanisms by which mindfulness interventions may bring about change. Study 1 employed a correlational design to examine whether mindfulness practice is associated with increased attentional control. Studies 2 to 4 used experimental methods to examine the ways in which individual mindfulness-based techniques might exert their effects on a health- related behaviour (chocolate consumption). Study 1 (N=125) showed no evidence that meditation practice was associated with reduced attentional bias (assessed using dot-probe and emotional Stroop tasks). Study 2 (N=135) showed that a cognitive defusion task (but not an acceptance task) helped individuals to resist chocolate over a five-day period. There was evidence to indicate that the defusion task worked by interrupting automatic links between chocolate-related thoughts and chocolate consumption. Study 3 (N=108). however, failed to find evidence that the defusion strategy worked either by reducing automaticity or increasing the accessibility of competing goals. Study 4 (N=60) further showed that the defusion strategy did not influence chocolate cravings. In conclusion, the current research demonstrated the need to go beyond merely describing the positive effects of mindfulness on changing self-control related behaviours. The findings also highlighted the potential problems of current mindfulness-based interventions due to their complexity, and that one mindfulness-based intervention does not 'fit' all health-related behaviours to bring about change. Ensuring the population maintains a healthy diet is important. Brief mindfulness training may be a useful means of helping people choose more healthy options. Further dismantling design studies were however advised before the evidence can be used to inform public health policy and services.

The implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is a small medical device, implanted underneath the collarbone with wires leading from it to the heart. The device detects and terminates ventricular arrhythmias by delivering an electric shock, that otherwise would most likely lead to sudden cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death. The ICD is perceived as the 'gold standard' treatment therapy for patients at risk of sudden cardiac death resulting from fast electrical rhythms (Bleasdale, Ruskin, O'Callaghan, 2005). However, ICD recipients have reported high levels of psychological distress such as anxiety and depression and a reduced quality of life (e.g. clinical review by Sears, Matchett & Conti, 2009). This thesis describes the development of a brief psychological intervention for patients living with an ICD based on the Medical Research Council's (2008) guidelines. The first stage in the development of the intervention was a qualitative study. Thirtysix ICD participants (ICD patients and partner) were recruited in south Wales. Semistructured interviews were conducted with each participant separately. Thirteen of the patients had not experienced an ICD shock. Transcripts were analysed by thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) using a cognitive-emotional-coping framework. General findings revealed patients did not know how to regain normality after their ICD and highlighted common worries were identified. Accordingly, the intervention aimed to be a structured guide underpinned by cognitive behavioural theory. It aimed to address common worries and bridge the gap between hospital discharge and patient's 6-week follow up appointment. The intervention was tested using a pilot randomised control trial. Ninety-nine participants were randomised to an intervention or control group. Differences between groups at baseline were adjusted by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to control for differences at 3- and 6-months. Results revealed the intervention group reported improved levels of depression, increased levels of mild exercise and increased patient acceptance to the ICD compared to the control group at 6-months. The simplicity and cost-effectiveness of this intervention suggests that not only is it theory and evidenced based, but should be sustainable long term. The next stage would be to carry out a fully powered randomised control trial.

Suicide is a major problem in society and remains a challenge for services. Approaches to suicidality occur across individual, inter-personal and socio-cultural levels. However, the dominant narrative remains a biomedical one. Excessive reliance on a biomedical approach is problematic as complex phenomena may be reduced to linear causes. Service user perspectives may highlight alternative understandings and interventions but can also be constrained by dominant cultural constructions. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore the cultural constructions which survivors drew on in narrating their experiences of suicidality. 11 attempt survivors who had recovered from suicidality were interviewed. A narrative analysis was conducted and highlighted a polyphony of survivor voices and cultural constructions. Attempt survivors drew on the dominant biomedical model to varying degrees, and accounts could be placed on a continuum of acceptance/rejection of this model. 6 stories (one for each point of the continuum) were explored in detail. All participants also related to alternative constructions of suicide including psychological, situational, interpersonal, moral, public and spiritual. Participants used constructions of suicide to justify their experiences. One previously unexplored voice to emerge was of suicidality as having been a positive experience. Results are discussed with respect to previous studies, narrative typologies of illness, clinical implications, limitations and future research.

M.Ed. / The HIV and AIDS pandemic is changing the nature of the traditional family structure, particularly in South Africa, where the number of child-headed families is escalating and more teenagers are forced to head the home. These teenagers, are traumatised: many have suffered multiple losses (a father, mother, siblings), not to mention the possible additional losses of schooling, their hope for the future and their remaining childhoods. Hope is unlikely to emerge in teenagers left to fend for themselves and their siblings. Therefore, an approach that is both Afrocentric and ecosystemic needs to be adopted in building support structures to instil the possibility of hope in their lives. Hope, as a protective phenomenon, builds resiliency empowering teenagers heading a home to rise above their harsh circumstances. The purpose of this inquiry was to explore and describe the essence of hope in the lived experiences of teenagers heading an AIDS-orphaned home in order to make recommendations for support within the emerging inclusive educational system in South Africa. A qualitative study with a phenomenological research design was used with three teenagers from a Non-Governmental Organisation which assists child-headed households in Soweto, Gauteng. The participants were purposefully selected as hopeful — teenagers who had managed to stay in school, despite their circumstances, as a way of securing a brighter future. Data was collected through two in-depth interviews with the teenagers and included writing and drawing exercises. A story thickening the counterplot of hope in their lives, which are filled with the challenges of orphanhood, was written for each of the teenagers. The coconstructed stories were then used as data for analysis to write their descriptions of hope. Textual, structural and textual-structural descriptions of hope were written June 2008 based on the four processes of epoche, phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation and synthesis. The findings generated from their stories of hope indicate that the "hopeful self" is socially constructed evolving in the spaces between people and in the interaction iii of the person with his/her environment. Some of the findings suggest that hope emerges in the context of opportunities, support and education, and needs the African spirit of "ubuntu" to sustain it. School in particular, was seen as a way to future success. On the basis of these findings, a social constructionist model for nurturing the hopeful self was recommended to help professionals in their thinking and planning of psychological support programmes for all children and teenagers identified as vulnerable. The model embraces ecosystemic thinking and envisages the hopeful self as being nurtured in three nested domains of support: the emerging inclusive education system; a network of care under the facilitation of educational psychologists based in the District Based Support Teams; and a psychological support system that has not as yet been implemented in the care children orphaned by AIDS. Psychological support is seen as crucial to ensure the emotional well-being of teenagers at risk who who are faced with the reality of heading a home at such an early age as a result of the AIDS pandemic

This study explored the reasoning process of interpreters during the process of early recollection (ER) interpretation, and in the identification of central life style theme using Mosak's typology system (1971). ERs from ten subjects were collected using a guestionnaire format and distributed to six interpreters. Three interpreters were experienced in ER interpretation and three received two hours of training in ER interpretation prior to the study. All interpreters were requested to record their impressions and thoughts during the interpretive process on audio tape for later analysis, and to assign a primary and secondary life style theme to each subject using Mosak's typologies. The results of this study provided information about the cues found in ERs that seem to guide interpreters, the effect of interpreter style on the final outcome, and the reliability of inter-judge agreement on life style theme from ER interpretation. The results showed that training in ER interpretation immediately provided the trainees with an ability to identify the perceptual schema of the subjects but it did not give them the same skill possessed by the experienced clinicians in metaphor analysis or an understanding of Mosak's typology system. Similarities and differences between the experienced clinicians and the trainees were analyzed. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

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Recent research has revealed ambiguous evidence for the validity of the cognitive complexity (CC) construct. Some authors (Bieri, Atkins, Briar, Leaman, Miller, & Tripodi, 1966; Scott, Osgood, & Peterson, 1979) have suggested that a potentially useful method for examining CC is multidimensional scaling. The present study examined such an operational definition. The present study also examined the perceptual dimensions that underlie individuals' perceptions of jobs. Three hundred and five subjects rated the similarity of pairs of job titles, completed the Role Construct Repertory Test (REP), and later rated videotaped vignettes in a performance appraisal simulation. Multidimensional scaling extracted the subjects’ dimensionality. Due to an unstable solution, the study’s first three hypotheses (that dimensionality would predict rater accuracy, that dimensionality would predict rater accuracy better than the traditional Role Construct Repertory test, and that dimensionality and the REP would be correlated) were untestable. Multidimensional scaling was not a useful approach in this context. The fourth hypothesis stated that the present data would replicate the three-dimensional job characteristics model of Stone and Gueutal (1985). Results indicated that the Stone and Gueutal configuration was not supported. Thus, job design efforts predicated on their model appear premature. / Ph. D.

This study attempts to show that there is no significant difference in performance between volunteers and non-volunteers in terms of cooperation in a psychological experiment.

The subjective experience of paranoia and persecutory delusions is largely overlooked in the extant literature, especially in first episode psychosis (FEP). This study explored the personal experience and understanding of threatening thoughts in FEP, guided by three over-arching research questions addressing: thought content and emotional distress; the role of life events and context; change in experience over time. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight participants. Transcripts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Five master themes were identified reflecting recurring characteristics of all participants’ experiences: Exposure of vulnerable self; At the limits of endurance; Elusive sense of agency; The urge to explain it all and FEP as a finite experience? 16 sub-themes indicated elements of master themes that varied among individual narratives. Findings indicated the highly interpersonal nature of threatening thoughts and their role as a key organising factor in people’s lives. Emotional distress was often viewed as consequential to multiple types of thought content, overwhelming pressure, powerlessness and expectation of negative judgement. Difficult life contexts often seemed to contribute to thought manifestation. Reduction of novelty was important to positive change. Several participants framed experiences as terrible but completed, rather than as the beginning of chronic difficulties.